Sustainable Exmouth

Andy Lock and myself
met with Cllr. Philip Skinner to discuss the Developer-free visioning exercise
that he is committed to for Queens Drive Stage 3. Cllr Skinner heads up the
Exmouth Regeneration Board and is the man to engage with if we want to influence
what happens next.

Our
pitch was essentially that which we have promoted for several years and which
Andy clearly spelt out in his presentation to Exmouth Town Council as long ago
as 2014.

Andy has very fond
childhood memories of ‘Swan Lake’ and the Harbour View cafe features in his
family’s history but we stuck to our brief, steering away from controversial
aspects of this much criticised project, and keeping the dialogue
positive.

The
meeting lasted three hours and Cllr. Skinner was more open to our suggestions on
sustainability than we could have hoped. There does seem to have been a
sea-change in EDDC’s approach to this development and for that credit must go to
the many concerned parties who have been vocal in their criticism over the
years.

We
felt it important to make sure Cllr. Skinner understands the mountain that he
has to climb if he has to gain the trust of people in the town and Andy stressed
the pervading distrust of EDDC and it’s officers. Cllr. Skinner stressed that
control of the process will remain with the Exmouth Regeneration Board so let us
see what the next steps are to be.

No
matter how welcome the Town might be to the ideas to be formulated by the Vision
process, the crunch will come in finding a developer to put up the money!

Grenadier
Application Coming Soon

Following last Month’s consultation, Andy Lock and myself wrote
Transition Exmouth's 'official' response, which was essentially positive. We will get
this on the Website when Rob is settled but in the meantime I can send it out on
request. We hear that Grenadier are taking longer than expected to process all
the consultation responses but still their formal planning application is
expected very soon.